Update:
Over the past few days, I’ve been addressed by thousands of supporters of The Amazing Atheist, had a four-hour conversation with The Amazing Atheist himself, watched a video he made addressing me directly, and watched a few other videos commenting on the whole exchange.
Most of these interactions have had a common goal: Telling me, as a member of black culture (which is obviously, apparently, a victim cult) how to stop being labeled by them as a member of a victim cult.
As I’ve listened, a fairly consistent picture seems to emerge, which has prepared me to write a brief guide.
So…here, for fellow black people, is a primer on how to get TJ and his supporters to stop calling your culture a victim cult.
I recently saw The Amazing Atheist (TJ Kirk) make a video I thought was racist, and I wrote why in my last blog post, where I accused him of being racist. He made a response video.
I thought, maybe, it was rational and would make strong arguments against my position. Maybe I was wrong somewhere.
I was disappointed.
Most of what he said seemed like a meandering, seriously flawed diatribe. Like, just more racism.
Apparently, however, a lot of people think he gave me the true smackdown and completely disproved everything in my blog post.
They’re wrong, so I’m setting the record straight. My apologies. This is long but, in all fairness, it’s a response to a 37-minute diatribe.
WOULD HE MAKE THE KKK BLUSH?
The item that got the strongest response from him is that I said he would make the Ku Klux Klan blush. I’ll admit that, to a degree, that was hyperbolic. No, TJ Kirk is not coming close to saying that we need to hang black people. He’s not a Christian. He’s not advocating a race war. In many ways, the KKK was much, much worse. At least, they were in the 1950s and the 1960s, the period most people think of when they think of the KKK.
But the modern day KKK would blush at some of the things The Amazing Atheist says. Many may not know this, but the KKK of the 1920s was caught with the black leader, Marcus Garvey, because Garvey wanted to move blacks out from the United States to start an all-black colony in Africa — their goal, they claimed, was not being racist, but being separate. If you listen to modern day KKK members, the focus of the KKK is not so much on how bad black people are, so much as it is on being proud of white culture and keeping it distinct from black people. They are very sensitive to accusations that they are racist, and insist on a carefully cultivated image of being distinct from black people.
For example, David Duke (former leader of the KKK), when asked about his supposed endorsement of Donald Trump, supported Trump’s stance on immigration — it went with the whole theme of keeping black people out. But he would not say that he was racist, later claimed he did not endorse Donald Trump, carefully tried to avoid any insinuation that he was a racist. As he stated in a March interview:
I’m not a white supremacist. I have a long history of condemning white supremacism. I have long history of condemning any kind of violence – and I haven’t been even involved in any Klan organizations for almost 40 years. So, this whole discussion of the Klan and white supremacism is a bogus discussion. It’s a lie. It’s not appropriate – not for Donald Trump and not for me.
…….
Let’s just get one thing straight – this blanket label “white supremacist” is bogus. I don’t even know anybody that calls themselves white supremacists. I know white people who want to preserve their heritage, their country and their rights.
…….
I have no problem with Cubans becoming president. I admire many Cubans, and many of them support European values. But not Cubans who are secretly, actually for open borders that will transform this country and destroy the European-American people and heritage, because of the immigration. I oppose them for that reason. I don’t even have a problem with Obama being president, if he would support the values of the overwhelming majority of the people.
Don’t get me wrong. David Duke is a racist piece of shit. But he is extremely self-conscious, and if TJ Kirk was sitting by him in that interview yelling about how he wished a black person would suck a big white dick…he’d probably blush and scoot his chair away.
Yes, the KKK is unabashedly trying to preserve white culture and separate out black people. But they are very, very insistent in stating that they are not racist.
Here’s another example, where the KKK is trying to argue about their right to adopt a highway:
Today, when speaking to leaders of the Klan, you won’t hear racial epithets or a denunciation of any ethnic groups.
“We do not hate anyone,” said Frank Ancona, the imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. “The true Ku Klux Klan is an organization that is looking out for the interests of the white race. It is a fraternal organization, and we do good works.”
These articles abound. Now, I think the KKK is secretly more racist than they let on. But they are trying (albeit unsuccessfully) to maintain a more manicured image these days, and if their leader went around waxing eloquent about how black culture was a “victim culture” and how black communities bred high crime and poverty and thus needed to be wiped out, they’d probably blush and tell him to tone things down, at least in public.
Their main goal is to separate black communities from white ones.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT GENTRIFICATION IS DOING IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY?
When I say that The Amazing Atheist is similar to the KKK, that is somewhat intentional, too. Now, he’s not exactly the KKK. Obviously. He has some black friends, and he’s not anywhere near trying to kick black people out of the country. He’s not for segregation, and he doesn’t want slavery to come back.
But he doesn’t seem to have a big problem with the wiping out of black communities via gentrification, which is in line with the goal of separating black communities from white ones. And the reason why is that he looks down on black communities, encouraging others to, as well, by saying many of the people living there are thugs.
Think about it. The question in the original video was, “Do you know what gentrification is doing in the black community?”
Let’s pause there. Do YOU know what gentrification is doing in the black community?
TJ Kirk immediately assumes that when we are concerned about black communities being gentrified, we’re whining because they want to kick black thugs out, making them homeless in many cases, so that they can make neighborhoods look nicer. Now, to be clear, there are other definitions of gentrification, as well, where people ensure housing is kept affordable for residents in the area even as the community looks nicer. But there are other worse forms of it, which TJ seemed to reference in his first video and definitely referenced in his most recent video, where people are actively kicked out of housing that is not up to a newly made code in order to make room for nicer-looking places.
The ironic thing is that TJ’s attitude regarding black communities is the exact attitude that is the problem the worst, most racist forms of gentrification.
And this makes me red-hot furious. Because you’re perpetuating a stereotype to hundreds of thousands of people who will go and vote people into office who are going to clear out black neighborhoods. By the way, this is what the KKK wants, albeit to a lesser extent — black communities to be cleared out in order to preserve “white culture.” It’s like — black communities = thugs, so we should kick them out.
That’s racist. It’s an attitude that goes back to 1910, as a recent article by Reason points out:
“Blacks,” said [Baltimore] Mayor Barry Mahool [in 1910], “should be quarantined in isolated slums in order to reduce the incidents of civil disturbance, to prevent the spread of communicable disease into the nearby White neighborhoods, and to protect property values among the White majority.”
The whole purpose of this displacement from homes in the first place was to displace blacks so that White neighborhoods could be separate from black people. It was to get most black people out of white neighborhoods so that they would be out of sight, out of mind from the more pristine white communities. And this stereotype made things worse for black people, and any perceived problem it solved has, it seems, made things worse.
This phenomenon didn’t just happen then. As the article states, this trend continued:
Ancient history? Hardly. Progressivism likes to think of government as defending minorities from discrimination by private enterprise. But time and again, history has shown progressive ideas marching in lockstep with racist motives.
In 1954, the Supreme Court allowed the District of Columbia to use eminent domain to eradicate blight. The court’s language was high-toned: “The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive,” it ruled. “The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary.” The victims, however, shared mostly skin tone: The “urban renewal” district to be bulldozed was 97.5 percent black.
But that was the 1950s. Surely it ended then? No.
In the 2005 eminent domain case Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court allowed government to seize private property for someone else’s ostensibly higher use — condemnation in the name of social progress. Dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor warned that “the fallout from this decision will not be random.” She was right. An Institute for Justice study of 184 eminent domain cases occurring since the 2005 decision in Kelo v. New London found condemnation was used disproportionately against minority property holders.
Another study, in 2009, found “a strong and significant … relationship” between low-density zoning policies and racial segregation. Yet another paper, published [in 2103], found that “over half the difference between levels of segregation in the stringently zoned Boston and lightly zoned Houston metro areas can be explained by zoning regulation alone.”
And that racist bullshit of kicking someone out of their home doesn’t just go away in ten years. The effects of this racism affect how you raise children. It affects whether you send your kid to a nice public school or a public school that’s about to fall apart, with overworked teachers, and no mom and dad at home hardly ever because they have to work their asses off to make the ends meet. And no, that’s not the only outcome. It’s an example of how these things have long-term consequences.
That’s wrong. That’s racist. That’s some KKK bullshit in the way it tries to condemn struggling black people so that white people can go to a nice public park. It’s selfish.
And here’s the worse thing. TJ Kirk AGREES this kind of thing is selfish. He shrugs this off and says, “Yeah, I’m selfish. It’s not wrong to be selfish.”
Fine. Be selfish. But don’t get pissed off when I call you a racist, because that’s what your selfishness is making you when you propagate racist stereotypes that are forcing black people to lose their goddamn homes. Just come right out and say, “Yeah, I’m racist. It’s not wrong to be racist” and be done with it.
When I showed that gentrification happened with white people, he used it as a point to say that it’s equal opportunity for all races — although he later says it’s predominantly black communities, as black communities tend to be poorer. That wasn’t the point. I was hoping that, by showing that a tool commonly used to kick black people out of neighborhoods had ripple effects in the white community, the white community would be concerned. I thought that would help, seeing as how TJ Kirk was selfish and all.
And instead, he doubled down. And he kept calling black communities full of thugs.
Because of the crime rate. Yeah, black people commit crime at a higher rate than white people. This is what happens when you’re poor, and being poor is what happens when people characterize you as a thug so that you’re not able to get a goddamn job, you get shittier medical care, you get harassed by police more often, you are sidelined in social situations, you get inferior education, and you get harsher punishments as far back as kindergarten.
But I don’t think I’m convincing you. I want to drive this home.
Let’s go to NPR for a rundown:
Here’s what the education data show: kids who are suspended or expelled from school are more likely to drop out, and those dropouts are more likely to end up with criminal records. In many places, school discipline pushes kids directly into the juvenile justice system. Take just one example: a school fight can end in an arrest for assault.
Education and civil rights groups have dubbed this phenomenon the “school-to-prison pipeline.” There are big racial differences in how school discipline is meted out: students of color are much more likely to be suspended or expelled that white students, even when the infractions are the same.
A new government study on discipline in the nation’s public schools shows just how very early that gap is present. According to the report, black children make up 18 percent of preschoolers, but make up nearly half of all out-of-school suspensions. (We’re talking mostly four-year-olds, people.)….The report doesn’t specify why there are such glaring disparities in school punishment, much less why those begin in preschool.
But an interesting study released in February suggests a contributing factor. A team of Harvard researchers found that black boys faced harsher punishment because they’re often perceived as older than they actually are.
……..
In one experiment, students rated the innocence of people ranging from infants to 25-year-olds who were black, white or an unidentified race. The students judged children up to 9 years old as equally innocent regardless of race, but considered black children significantly less innocent than other children in every age group beginning at age 10, the researchers found.Researchers used questionnaires to assess the participants’ prejudice and dehumanization of blacks. They found that participants who implicitly associated blacks with apes thought the black children were older and less innocent.
Those are Cliff Notes. There are a shitload more studies, but this blog post is already pretty long and I figure you get the general gist.
Still, I want to break this down.
The question was asked, “Do you know what gentrification is doing to black communities?”
What is it doing? Displacing black people. Gang members and non-gang-members. Since the 1950s, at least. Systematically. Why? Because black people are seen as thugs.
Are black people thugs? Not all of them. But the assumption that black communities are thug communities causes all black people — thugs and non-thugs — to be less likely to get an education, to get good jobs, to get good medical care, to get sentenced fairly (and prison can create criminals), to get more scrutinized by law enforcement (which leads to more convictions, which exacerbates, racism, which – again – leads to even more convictions), and to have decent housing (due to evictions).
But still…not all black people are thugs.
Black communities do not equal black thugs, and the racist myth that they do is what is keeping so many black people displaced, poor, and desperate.
So the WORST response you could have to “Do you know what gentrification is doing to black communities?” is to say that gentrification is justified due to black crime. But that’s what he does when he says:
Yeah, [gentrification] is making [black communities] look nicer and fix the high crime in slums created by the black community.
The best response is to undo the conditions that are causing black crime. To actually, y’know, treat people fairly from preschool to adulthood.
Not to clear people out, but to give people opportunity and fairness. Because after you clear them out — where are they going to go? Honestly. First, homelessness is going to exacerbate, not solve, any crime problems that do exist (because that’s an even lower level of poverty). And second, not all black, newly homeless people are thugs — and the myth that they are hurts them and drives them further into poverty.
And that hurts EVERYONE. Because more poverty results in a worse economy for everyone, and yes, higher crime rates. It’s far better to give people opportunities to thrive.
Racism hurts everyone. It’s better to have a well-educated population.
It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t see it this way. As he states:
I don’t care if [my views on gentrification] are selfish. I AM selfish. I’m more interested in my self-interest than the interests of other people. You got me… I don’t care.
I don’t look at an area and say, “Man, I wish someone would gentrify this area so I could go to the fucking GAP.” I just don’t shed any tears when it happens.
And I say fine. You can be selfish. The KKK is also selfish. They want black communities gone because black people are not good for the communities they want. Because they’re selfish. And they put a polite veneer on it these days, but that selfishness fuels them. And selfishness fuels TJ Kirk. I mean, I’m not seeing things, right? That’s what he said.
And the KKK also plays this game of saying, “We want black communities out because we’re selfish. But we’re not racist.”
Yeah, TJ is different than the KKK in many ways, as I mentioned above. But if you’re going to be selfish in that way — you’re also racist. Because you see black communities as “those thugs.” Because you don’t care and you’re proud of not caring about how to help black people — although you DO care enough to make a long racist video that will hurt them. Because you are perpetuating racism. Because you proudly say that people should not try to fix problems of racism that lead to the problems of poverty that you are perpetuating by perpetually and callously not caring about black people or the potential we could have if you gave us a chance.
IS RACISM BLACK PEOPLE’S PROBLEM?
In his original video (the one I responded to in my last blog post) I said:
[Racism against black people] is not my problem in the first place. What are [the people in the video I’m responding to] going to do to end discrimination against atheists? Right, you ain’t gonna do shit, because it’s not your problem and you don’t give a shit.
Two things about this. He sees atheists, it seems, as a group that is discriminated against, and he wants to fight against their discrimination.
He sees blacks, it seems, as a group that is discriminated against, and he doesn’t really see it as his responsibility to fight against their discrimination — it’s not his problem.
Why? Because he’s part of the first group and not the second.
This was not based on what atheists thought, or what black people thought. This is based on the discrimination in society — the way they are treated.
I criticized that. I basically said that if fighting for racist atheists resulted in making things worse for black people fighting for equality, I would have to stop fighting for the prominence of atheist groups and leaders. We aren’t at that point now. And yeah, of course I want to fight against atheist discrimination. But not to help people like TJ Kirk characterize black culture as a victim cult (something he proudly doubled down on) when we have real, well-documented grievances.
You have to understand that if the predominantly white group of atheists in America go the way of TJ Kirk, I’m given a choice of battles: I can either fight for an atheist group that is intent on saying that black culture is a victim cult when we have horrendous injustices in society, or I can fight against black injustice in the black church. I’d rather go with the latter, if forced to choose.
How do you solve the problem? Stop incorrectly saying that black culture is victim culture. Stop pretending like racism isn’t a serious issue in America. That’s a good start. I don’t want to help you use your prominence as an atheist to make things worse in this culture for me. If this is a taste of the secular community to come, I want out.
He misses this when he says, at the end of his response video to me:
I care about black people when I actually know them as a person, as an individual. I don’t care about black people as a group. Nor do I care about white people as a group. I don’t view people as part of some racial identity. I don’t view people as part of some borg collective, where all they can do is just think the same as everyone else around them.
That was fundamentally moving the goalpost. I wasn’t, and he wasn’t, talking about the way black people and atheists thought in the original statement. We were talking about the way they were treated. They are both discriminated-against groups. And discriminated-against groups hurt everyone, because our misperception of them and our acts against them limits their potential, creates resentment, and makes us as a society less than we have the potential to be.
And tell me this: how can he really not see black people as a group, and at the same time double down on his statement that black culture is a victim culture. I mean, he does this time and time again. He says that he’s not saying something, and then he says it. Which brings me to my next point.
SPEAKING OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH
I have a theory.
I think that, like the KKK, and like Donald Trump when asked about David Duke’s endorsement of him, TJ Kirk is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He can’t say he’s racist, because then he’ll get labeled as racist. So he has to say he’s not racist. But he can’t have views that are completely against racism, because he knows that’ll alienate a lot of fans and…because he is a bit racist.
He speaks out of both sides of his mouth, and people hear what they want to hear.
For example, he says:
I don’t look at an area and say, “Man, I wish someone would gentrify this area so I could go to the fucking GAP.”
And half the audience is like, “Man, he showed Martin. He’s not happy about making black communities homeless for the installation of shopping malls. Martin straw-manned.”
And while they’re patting themselves on the back, he follows up with:
I just don’t shed any tears when it happens.
There. The racists are happy.
He does this a lot. Here is another example:
All the stuff you point to, as like, “Black people, we’re so victimized” — it’s actually poor people who are victimized. There are more poor black people than poor white people, so black people are disproportionately victimized by society for those reasons. But in actuality it has more to do with poverty than it does to do with race. There are white people who don’t have two fucking pennies to rub together, and opportunities are not being thrown their way because they’re white. …
It’s all about class. There is no war but the class war.
So racism isn’t a problem. It’s because we’re poor. And yet, he does admit, later (after many may have stopped watching the video) at around 28:12:
White people are more likely to do drugs than black people, but black people are more likely to go to jail for drugs than white people. They’re more likely to get pulled over. They’re more likely to get randomly searched on the street by police. There are certain things that — yeah, if you’re black, you have a certain disadvantage [remember — that other quote was that it’s only about class]. But are those disadvantages such that it’s impossible for a black person to achieve their dreams? No, it’s certainly not.
And for every black person sitting around broke, there’s probably at least one white person sitting around broke, with nothing going on for them [emphasis mine].
Those statements seem to contradict each other. He’s talking about race, not class, there. And in case there’s any doubt, he ends his statement by saying that black people and white people are poor at about the same rates, where right before he said there’s a drastic disparity in poverty.
Now, to be fair, he may come back and say there is a greater NUMBER of poor white people than black people. And yeah, that’s true, because there are far more white people in the United States than black people. But it is disproportionate. So the statement he makes in that last sentence, which seems clearly meant to indicate opportunities are equal, is extremely misleading, because they’re not. And what’s more, I think he knows this. It just is inconvenient for the particular point he is trying to make in that sentence.
And as a side note — no, it’s not impossible for a black person to achieve their dreams. But be honest. Even going by The Amazing Atheist’s words. Two people are at the same lower-class level. One is more likely to go to jail for drugs, get pulled over by police, or get randomly searched (to make this analogy more exact, one is also more likely to be suspended in school for the same behavior, more likely to receive sub-par medical care, less likely to get a job, and so on). Both can succeed. But who are you gonna put your money on?
Sure, you’ll be wrong every once in a while. Barack Obama was President. But how many black Presidents were before him?
I mean…the wages of black people and white people, according to the most recent Pew Research Poll, have stayed about the same $20,000 apart since the 1960s.
Racism isn’t over. The effects have been constant and have changed far less than TJ Kirk would have us believe. Are we getting wealthier? Yes. Is it impossible for us to succeed? No. But it’s a hell of a lot harder, which means fewer of us are going to make it, and those of us who do will have a harder time. It’s getting better, but it’s still not as good as it could be.
I mean — to review, he said that being black or white doesn’t make a major difference. When, to be clear, as the Washington Post shows fairly convincingly — if you look at the stats instead of just listening to a random YouTuber who labels himself “Amazing,” the black-white gap has been about the same for the past 50 years. Why? I mean, I’d throw out sample options, but seeing his video, he’ll just take out the two that he doesn’t agree with and see them all as things I’m saying he believes instead of examples of options. I know this because, in my last post, asked where the homeless black community “thugs” condemned to homelessness were going to go and proposed prison and concentration camps, he took that as me saying that he thought we should put black people in prison or concentration camps. No — I was pointing out unsavory alternatives for homeless black people who literally had nowhere to go. So yeah — in that spirit — why is the gap the same over the last 50 years, if the effects of racism are dead and gone?
Screw it — I’ll propose one of the options. Do you really think it’s because black people are a “victim cult”? Could it be that we are still discriminated against in medical care, employment, social environments, law enforcement, the education system, the justice system, and literally every part of US society we’ve studied — according to every actual study (note: each of those hyperlinks are links to information from actual studies, not random views of a YouTube racist huckstering for views).
Anyways, moving on, he says, in response to my saying that the country was built on the back of slaves:
The fact that the country was built on the back of slaves is no longer a relevant and pertinent fact. It has nothing to do with what’s going on today.
There. He shuts me down. Right? No, because he does the exact same shit he does several times in his video and jumps onto the other side, lowering his voice a bit as if he’s using small print. That first part was the louder “Martin is wrong.” And then he actually says:
Maybe there’s a causal relationship if you go far enough back and you say this, and this, and this led to this, and this led to this.
No shit. Yeah. Slavery had everything to do with segregation, which has everything to do with poverty in the black community and continued effects of racism. It’s well documented. It’s a direct causal relationship. And he actual admits that it may be, here. Right after he says it had NOTHING to do with what’s going on today.
It’s infuriating double-speak. And then he tries to fill in the hole he dug with:
Slavery is not an issue anymore. It’s been gone for quite sometime.
Which is it? Is there a causal relationship or not? You see? He’s straddling both sides of the fence.
So those are a few examples. There’s more, and this is already too long, but you get the gist.
It’s how he can say, “Why don’t you suck a big, fucking white dick” at 33:25 and still insist he said nothing racist.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW BAD RACISM IS, MAYBE ASK THE PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCE RACISM
I think you should know that if you believe TJ Kirk when he says racism isn’t a big deal anymore, you’re hearing from someone who doesn’t experience racism about what it’s like to experience racism.
Sure, there’s a minority of black people who will agree that racism doesn’t hold them back. But the vast majority will disagree drastically.
What TJ is doing is the equivalent of saying, “Look at that minority of black people. That shows it’s not a problem!”
There are many reasons black people may say it’s not a problem. One is not very politically correct, but it’s true, as I’ve experienced it myself. When you have a lot of white friends, as I do, there’s pressure to be one of the “good black people” who say racism isn’t real. Another reason is that it is very difficult to admit you’re treated as a second-class citizen in American society — there’s something humiliating about it, and it can be tempting to live in denial. A third is that some places and environments are simply more racist than others. Birmingham, Alabama is not Seattle, Washington. But in spite of this, according to people who actually live in black skin day in, day out, discrimination is a problem. And the statistics back them up. Maybe the reason they aren’t believed is that they are too often stereotyped as less logical than white people? I mean, why else would people ignore such a well-documented problem?
There are plenty of disparities. They are well documented. And pretending that they aren’t any big deal doesn’t solve racism. It perpetuates it.
WHY DO YOU CARE? AND WHY SHOULD I?
I care because when TJ Kirk calls himself “Amazing” and gets on a pedestal to spout these views, he drastically mischaracterizes the state of race in America. He nails in the same American racism that has led to widespread injustices, in various forms, for centuries. His video tells people that racism is OK, as long as you don’t call it racism. And apparently, he has convinced a lot of people.
I think you should care because when someone like TJ can so thoroughly disinform hundreds of thousands of people regarding the effects of racism in the United States, he hurts us all. Not if his video got a hundred thousand views. But half a million people? Yes, that’s serious. It gives them an inaccurate view of the landscape of the United States. It tells us that the solution to poor black neighborhoods is kicking out the black people and building shopping malls, making them poorer and even more desperate, instead of actually combatting racism so that they have better opportunities, better education, and a fairer shot to combat life without worrying about incarceration. This hurts us all.
And TJ cares, because he was so bothered by the video he saw that he made one in response. This isn’t just indifference. It’s active racism to go on YouTube and make a video as TJ originally did.
And he cares about continuing to be racist, so much that he went on YouTube and made a 37-minute video response to me, on top of his first video.
And his followers cared so much that they came to my blog and wrote over a thousand comments about this to me.
So it seems I struck a nerve. Good. Maybe it’ll actually get them to think.
Thank you for reading.
P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do more of what I’m doing.
If you want to hear me talk about this, I discussed it on The Naked Diner below.
Also, here’s my conversation with Steve Shives:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBTQ3JhY4Us[/youtube]
